Hustle And Bustle:Commercial Life In Literary Sketches And Genre Paintings During The Tang And Song Dynasties

This dissertation studies the representative works of Literary Sketches and Genre Paintings during the Tang and Song dynasties.Among the tremendous amount of Literary Sketches,this study focuses on the most influential works--The Taiping Guangji(Extensive records of the Taiping era)and Yijian zhi(Record of the listener).And for Genre Paintings,Qingming Shanghe Tu(Along the River During the Qingming Festival)by painter Zhang Zeduan,series of Knick-knack Peddler by Su Hanchen and Li Song are also the main sources,along with other sketches and image materials.Pictures and texts are verified mutually in this dissertation.From the microscopic point of view,this study carefully narrates commercial life and businessman’s management states,so as to integrate and systematize the commercial life and economic operation status in rural and urban areas in the Tang and Song dynasties.From the Tang dynasty to the Song dynasty,the status of merchants was constantly improving.They gradually improved their status through various ways,such as imperial examinations,marriage,transaction of government official positions,and dependence on dignitaries.Comparing with those of the previous dynasties,their living conditions were significantly improved.At the turn of the two dynasties,the square city system was gradually broken,the different levels of city scales began to form,and the population in cities expanded rapidly.In the Song dynasty,urban commerce was very prosperous.Inside and outside Bianjing(now Kaifeng)and Lin’an,there were relatively concentrated commercial centers,including a number of regional central cities.A large number of floating people in cities promoted the vigorous development of Di dian industry(“Di dian”was a place to deposit goods,provide lodging and conduct trade negotiations among merchants.),service industry and entertainment industry.During the two dynasties,the number of small and medium-sized merchants,whose businesses involved in all aspects of social life,kept growing,and they became an important force in commercial life.As the terminal of the wholesale market,peddlers brought ordinary farmers into the commercial sales network by selling small wares through villages or towns,thereby they played a positive role in promoting the development of rural commodity economy.Driven by the policy of encouraging commerce in the Song dynasty and influenced by the great progress of shipbuilding technology,a large number of sea traders began to go abroad and engaged in overseas trade.Therefore,foreign trade developed greater than that in the Tang dynasty.Those sea traders brought back rich knowledge from abroad,and the engraving printing technology made the cultural transmission more convenient,because of which more and more people in the Song dynasty got a chance to have a better and more thorough understanding of the outside world.Moreover,as port cities gradually became large-scale consumer markets in this era,foreign merchants could sell their goods in large ports,these reduced the mobility of goods and people to the inland markets.Thus,a legendary story “Hu merchants’ recognition of the treasure” underwent its rise and fall,and gradually faded out of the creation field.